Haematopoietic stem cells of human umbilical-cord blood have become more important recently, for it is recognized that such cells have potential biomedical uses in the potential treatment of the many diseases. Such stem cells are particularly valuable to the individual from whom they were extracted, for they can have a greater probability of being recognized as familiar (i.e., not foreign, or antigen) by the immune system, thus potentially avoiding auto-immune response to those cells, or to other cells or biological material grown from those cells.
Typically, cord blood is preserved at ultra-low temperatures, which are expensive to produce and maintain, and which require special, low-temperature storage facilities. Cryopreservation and storage currently require liquid nitrogen or ultra-low-refrigeration-based methods for long- or short-term storage, which requires routine maintenance and extensive space requirements. The preservation of stem cells also has strict requirements for long-term storage to maintain genetic integrity. Therefore, individuals, such as parents who want to store stem cells of their newborn children, are presently required to utilize an elaborate cryostorage facility, at substantial cost to themselves and with reduced personal control over the biological material of their family and child. Typically, parents must pay an initial processing fee and then continue to pay into the future an annual storage fee. There is also substantial uncertainty that a cryostorage company will remain a viable business entity for many decades, or that said company will not lose the stored specimens. The potential for such business failures or mistakes increases the risk insurance that such a business entity must carry, with the insurance cost being passed on to the end-user customer.
It is desirable, then, to have a method for enabling donors generally, and parents and/or guardians of newborns in particular, to obtain, possess and keep control over a stored donor sample, or specimen cells (e.g., stem cells from the umbilical cord blood of a newborn child), which sample or specimen cells, with some degree of probability, can be resuscitated later by medical professionals at the direction of the parent and/or the donor himself or herself in the event that such cells are later needed for a medical procedure. Further, it is desirable to make this method available to parents through a straightforward and economically feasible service that is reasonably approachable as part of a normal child-birth experience. It is a further goal to reduce or eliminate ongoing annual storage costs by avoiding continuing cryostorage.
It is a further goal to provide a business method and system that employs computerized, automated steps and standardization at numerous points in the process in order to further improve handling-efficiencies and thereby increase cost savings owing to these efficiencies and reduction of human labor costs. It is a further goal to reduce business cost and customer cost by developing a business method and system that can, by transferring possession and responsibility for long-term storage to the customer or to a greater variety of 3rd party custodians who may be chosen by the customer, reduce potential and real legal and insurance costs that would otherwise burden the stem-cell preservation and storage provider-service business.